Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Could we PLEASE...

...Please, keep politics out of the game? Most of us are tired of people trying to force crazy ideologies down our throats at every single opportunity, or rich corporations trying to signal virtue by propagandizing the evils of capitalism and the wonders of socialism...

It is bad enough that Star Wars and half the others franchises around got destroyed by Socialjusticewarriorism. Remember: go woke, go broke...

You can't have a story without some kind of "politics" in it. People are human and every human has their own particular views and biases. If the writers did what you wanted and didn't put any references to ideologies that You, Personally, Do Not Like, that would still be making a political statement. You might not see it as a political statement because it reflected your personal views, but nevertheless it would be a political statement.

I find that people who complain about "social justice warriors" tend to be intolerant of any viewpoints except their own being presented.

I think what he is asking is for the story to not FOCUS on gender fluidity, strong and independent women, misogynistic men villains etc. And I don't think there were politics in BG1 and 2.

Politics are a facet of almost every decision you make, even if you don't think so. Or, I should say, almost every action you take can have a political statement.

And also; even the story of the game we know it is a political statement, in-universe; Becoming a mindflayer (and thus furthering their agenda to rise to ruling the world like in days of old) or fighting back and making a stand for the current status quo.

You side with the druids? Help the dryads fight back against the town that's over-foresting? Pro nature. Anti-industry.

Look at any actions you take IRL; almost any of them can have a political statement in some way. Asking for anti-politics is like asking for anti-story. You need a clashing of ideas and ideologies. If everyone agreed, or never brought up what they're fighting for/against, then there would be no conflict to drive an adventure story like Baldur's Gate.

Also, being anti-politics is, in itself, a political statement.

Also, also, BG has always had politics; you were the offspring of a god of murder, and had to decide what to do as such. Theology and politics.

That is true of some, but more often it's the folks getting called SJWs that are intolerant of views other then there own, that is partly why they are getting called that in the first place. Of course there are those on the right who just carelessly toss the SJW, or White Knight around like feminists toss the word mysongonist around till it's completely devalued.

Personally prefer the term professionally offended to SJW, but it never caught on.

For background I'm former feminist turned MRA, still very, very leftwing, but much more culturally Libertarian then I was in my youth, when at times I was what you could call an SJW, when I realized how authoritianism element of Political Correctionness was self defeating ultimately and often not honest and even down right hypocritical.

I still vote for feminists because there is common ground on stuff like social programs and the economy.

NO GAME up to 10 years ago had any kind of ideological propaganda on it. Have you seen it in BG1 and 2? This is something new. This belief that everything is political all the time and have always been, and that you cannot be neutral but will always feather one's own nest... This is just something despicable made up by post-modernism.

Interestingly enough I always see almost exclusively SJWs being intolerant of anyone else...

It's not about being anti-political, just about not using yet another form of art/entertainment as pure political, one-sided propaganda and forgetting about the game itself. Just look at the 3 last Star Wars episodes, FFS...

That's a great term. With my lack of proficiency in English I had never heard it. Thank you.

I'll be honest; I did not see any politics in the recent Star Wars trilogy, outside of the in-universe stuff (rebels fighting against an empire). But I was not looking for any political message, either.

Actually be use wokeness as an excuse for shit stories, go broke. All the woke stuff that went broke and failed did so not because they were woke, they do so because they were badly done. "Woke" stuff done well doesn't go broke, just like politically incorrect stuff done well doesn't go broke. Diversity is good, but it should feel organic and not leacturing or white male bashing. Have diversity, but stop making itthe centre piece of PR, because all the woke back patting just makes folks see there tokenism and agendas.

Destroying Luke because he was an "alpha male"?
Rey constantly beating Kylo's (a trained Skywalker who is also trained in the dark side) ass?
Rey being a better pilot than Poe?

None of that sounds like it is anything more than people looking for an excuse, no offense.
I could easily say that Luke's arc was done, and he sacrificed himself to save the rebellion.
Rey could beat Kylo because..well..slightly bad writing, mostly. Maybe the Force, too. She was strong in it.
Same with being a pilot; the Force just made her better than a trained pilot. I mean, it worked for Luke. He made a million-to-one shot and avoided getting shot down despite being a moisture farmer. Not a trained pilot. It could also just be bad writing.
Hell, Luke sacrificing himself was a parallel to his father sacrificing himself. his dad did it for family, he did it for the rebellion, for while he was the the father figure. It also coudl have been that the writers wanted him to go out in a battle, and not 'Luke grew old and died. The end'

None of it HAS to be politics unless people wanted it to be so, just so they could attack it.

People will always find a reason to complain, even if one does not exist. Not trying to be offensive, or saying YOU are. Just saying that none of that screams 'politics' to me.

What about the leaks that indicate that there was studio interference for those things to happen to please "woke audiences" (Luke being a failure and Rey being stronger than everyone without explanation)?
Would you like for events in BG1 and 2 to be retconed to please people? Balthazar was a gender fluid man-tree all along?

Here's where we get into view vs view.

The people yelling 'no politics!' are usually the ones upset if a new story comes out and has an openly gay character, or someone gender fluid.
Let's say Larian made a character in BG3 that was gender fluid, just because that's who they were. They did not retconn anything. Whole new character. People would STILL scream they were 'just added for the 'woke people'' and 'pandering'.
Even if that were not the case. Even if Larian showed writers notes on how the dude was gender fluid from day 1, people would STILL scream 'politics'.

Because they just don't want to hear it.They want THEIR version of 'Not in my game' over anyone else's views. Even the devs.

But these discussions never end with calm words on the internet. People are too defensive about there views, on both sides. I've said my part, and I will withdraw.

You've never heard of it, because I invented it and it never caught on, people liked SJW more, while I wasn't a fan of the term for various reasons, but for practical reasons of communication I still use it.

As for trans characters I'm fine with it, but they shouldn't feel shoe horned in and the nature of the setting should define it's expression.

So being trans in Waterdeep where magics exists to not only change one's gender, but sex as well to the point of fertility, which makes it a very different experience then being trans in New York or Toronto. Plus Doppelgangar and other shapeshifters. Plus a history of very different religions and cultures.

And that is true of being black, there are brown skin humans in FR, but their experiences are not a mirror to the African American or Black Canadian experience. In fact there are seperate none related black peoples in FR (some humans evolved on Toril, others came from other worlds). Like Chultans and Turmish to my knowledge have no blood relationship to each other despite both being black (this weird phenomnia is also true of white cultures, but not Shou aka Asians who are all immigrants to Toril I believe).

My favourite JRPG series, Suikoden, had 5 games between 1995 and 2006 and are pretty political and I love how their stories have a lot of shades of grey so you can even agree with some views of the villains. There's nothing "woke" about them, it's simply just very good storytelling.

To quote this article.

So yeah, I see absolutely nothing wrong with a story being political. No matter what the subject of the story is, what matters more if it's well-written or not. But I think we can agree that "woke" is not well-written, pretentious stuff rarely are, if ever.

This is the first Political themed thread I've seen since I started viewing this forum.

That is usually shaped by how the PR is handled. I mean yeah there are folks who complain about any gay or trans representations, but there are others who are more balanced then that.

I support diversity, but I don't support doing it badly or using lazy story telling to achieve it.

Oh don't get me wrong, I'm a libertarian (although all the "gender" terms are not scientific and thus are meaningless according to Biology). The point is, do not retcon established franchises to put a "woke" agenda.
If writers create feminist, gay, bissexual characters organically, i.e, it is imperative that they have those traits, then great. But do not make Lando be "gay" for droids. It is retarded.

Let's not use the "but the science!" argument. That's being used to excuse some very nasty opinions here in the UK at least and more often than not it seems the actual geneticists disagree with those who choose to use biology to support their claim.

As for politics in general, please be careful everyone. Though we generally encourage discussion about pretty much anything, there is a line when it comes to marginalising individuals or specific groups of people.

fwiw I agree about the subject of politics in games in that, if it's part of a well-written story that's fine, but if it's just come along for the ride and serves no purpose other than to Make A Point, I'm less fine with it.